Page 16 - Treasure, World & U.S. Coin Auction 17

the years were the Van Lynden, the Santa Gertrude (or Gertrudis) and Capitana (Jesús María de la Limpia Concepción), sunk in
the Romario, with scant evidence to support any of the attributions. 1654 off Chanduy, Ecuador
Spanish archival research suggested a new name, Nuestra Señora de los This wreck was the largest loss ever experienced by the
Remedios, which sank in that general area in 1624. Since dates on the Spanish South Seas (Pacific) Fleet, of which the Jesus María de la
recovered coins extend past 1624, this attribution must be incorrect. Limpia Concepción was the capitana (“captain’s ship” or lead vessel)
A more recent recovery in the 1990s off Lucayan Beach turned up in 1654. Official records reported the loss of 3 million pesos of silver
similar material, but no further clues as to the ship’s (or ships’) identity. (2,212 ingots, 216 chests of coins, and 22 boxes of wrought silver),
Practically all of the coins have been Mexican 8 and 4 reales of the augmented to a total of as much as 10 million pesos when contraband
assayer-D period, some in quite nice condition and a few with clear and private consignments were taken into account. By comparison,
dates, which are rare. Expect to pay a modest premium for specimens the entire annual silver production in Peru at that time was only about
in white clamshell boxes produced by Spink & Son (London) in the 6-7 million pesos!
1960s for a promotion that capped off years of disagreements between Obviously overloaded, the Capitana sank technically due to
the salvagers, their backers and the Bahamian government. pilot error, which drove the ship onto the reefs south of the peninsula
known as Punta Santa Elena, a geographic feature the pilot thought
he had cleared. Twenty people died in the disaster. For eight years
afterward, Spanish salvagers officially recovered over 3 million pesos
of coins and bullion (with probably much more recovered off the
record), leaving only an unreachable lower section for divers to find
in our time. Ironically, the main salvager of the Capitana in the 1650s
and early 1660s was none other than the ship’s silvermaster, Bernardo
de Campos, who was responsible for the ship’s being overloaded with
contraband in the first place.
The wreck was rediscovered in the mid-1990s and salvaged
(completely, according to some) in 1997. After a 50-50 split with the
Ecuadorian government in 1998, investors sold most of their half of the
more than 5,000 coins recovered at auction in 1999. Almost exclusively
Potosí 8 and 4 reales, the coins were a healthy mix of countermarked
Concepción, sunk in 1641 off the northeast coast of issues of 1649-1652, transitional issues of 1652, and post-transitional
Hispaniola pillars-and-waves cobs of 1653-1654, many in excellent condition and
The Concepción was one of the most significant Spanish wrecks expertly conserved.
of all time, serving the Spanish with a loss of over 100 tons of silver As an interesting footnote, the very coins salvaged from the
and gold treasure. The almiranta of a 21-ship fleet, the Concepción Capitana by the Spanish in 1654 were lost again on the Maravillas
was already in poor repair when the Europe-bound fleet encountered wreck of 1656 (see next), and some of those coins salvaged from the
a storm in September of 1641, leaving her disabled and navigating Maravillas were lost again in the wreck of the salvage vessel Madama do
under makeshift sails amid disagreement among its pilots about their Brasil off Gorda Cay (Bahamas) in 1657. Furthering Spain’s woes was
location. Weeks later, she grounded on a reef in an area now named the the destruction of another treasure fleet in 1657 by English marauders
Silver Shoals, just east of another shoal known as the Abrojos, which fresh from a victory in the Bay of Cádiz off Santa Cruz on the island
the pilots were trying to avoid. After another storm hit the wrecked of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
ship and the admiral and officers left in the ship’s only longboat, the
remaining crew resorted to building rafts from the ship’s timbers. Maravillas, sunk in 1656 off Grand Bahama Island
Survivors’ accounts pointed to drowning, starvation and even sharks As the almiranta of the homebound Spanish fleet in January of
for the approximately 300 casualties. In the fallout that ensued, none 1656, the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas was officially filled with over
of the survivors could report the wreck’s location with accuracy, so it five million pesos of treasure (and probably much more in contraband,
sat undisturbed until New England’s William Phipps found it in 1687 as was usually the case). That treasure included much of the silver
and brought home tons of silver and some gold, to the delight of his salvaged from the South Seas Fleet’s Capitana of 1654 that wrecked
English backers. on Chanduy Reef off Ecuador (see above). The ill-fated treasure sank
The Concepción was found again in 1978 by Burt Webber, once again when the Maravillas unexpectedly ran into shallow water
Jr., whose divers recovered some 60,000 silver cobs, mostly Mexican 8 and was subsequently rammed by one of the other ships of its fleet,
and 4 reales, and also some Potosí and rare Colombian cobs, including forcing the captain to try to ground the Maravillas on a nearby reef on
more from the Cartagena mint than had been found on any other Little Bahama Bank off Grand Bahama Island. In the ensuing chaos,
shipwreck. Unlike the Maravillas 15 years later, the Concepción did not exacerbated by strong winds, most of the 650 people on board died in
yield any gold cobs in our time, and any significant artifacts found were the night, and the wreckage scattered. Spanish salvagers soon recovered
retained by the government of the Dominican Republic who oversaw almost half a million pesos of treasure, followed by more recoveries
the salvage. The bulk of the silver cobs found on the Concepción were over the next several decades, yet with over half of the official cargo
heavily promoted, even in department stores. The site is still worked still unfound.
from time to time with limited success. The first rediscovery of the Maravillas in the twentieth century
was by Robert Marx and his company, Seafinders, in 1972, whose
finds were featured in an auction by Schulman in New York in 1974.
Included among the coins in this sale were some previously unknown
Cartagena silver cobs of 1655 and countermarked Potosí coinage of
14